Krishna Dronavajjala
B.Tech., Chemical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, India, 2001
My research is focused on studying the interfacial reactions
by anchoring homogeneous catalyst on the tail end of Self Assembled
Monolayer (SAM) on gold. In this, a long chain cyano alkane thiol
SAM is formed on gold. A [Pd(CH3CN)4](BF4) is anchored on to tail
end of SAM by displacing one/two of acetonitrile ligand(s). Pd complex
is known to polymerize olefins using carbocationic mechanism. Polymerization
of styrene and derivatives of styrene at the interface is studied.
By controlling the reaction conditions, in-place polymer of required
thickness can be grown.